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A peer support network for teenagers, Rainbow Youth, says some New Zealand students are being prevented from taking same-sex partners to school balls unless they sign contracts confirming they are homosexual.
Education officer Serafin Dillon, told the Dominion Post newspaper that she knows of four Auckland colleges that do not allow same-gender ball partners unless pupils sign contracts stating their sexual orientation. Rainbow Youth provides support and advocacy for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people and their families.
"If this was in the workplace it would be discrimination and it would be unheard of," she said. "But because it's a school they think they can somehow get away with it."
Schools that barred same-sex partners were discriminating against gay pupils or those who only wanted to take their best friend.
Rongotai College pupil Joshua Wright, 16, said policies that discriminated against gay pupils were cruel and unfair.
He planned to take a male ball partner. "If (the school) ask me to sign a contract, I'm going to say `no' and just go anyway. "
Rainbow Youth said it had planned an alternative ball next Saturday night in Auckland - where "it doesn't matter who your date is - or who wears the dress!"
A website, gaynz.com, said publicity about the bans had appeared on gay blogger websites around the world, where readers were shocked to discover student same-sex couples would have to sign any sort of "pledge".
"Having them sign a contract is not only discriminatory, but creepy as hell. What are they afraid will happen?" commented one reader on popular gay American blog Queerty.com. "Why don't the straight students have to sign something to confirm their heterosexuality? "
The Human Rights Commission has said excluding someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender is potentially unlawful.
In 2001, then-education minister Trevor Mallard said after a similar controversy at Westlake Girls High School that he opposed schools barring same-sex partners.
- NZPA
